What do we know about janitors who clean our offices?

Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco in Houston, contends that workers are treated unhumanely.

Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco in Houston, contends that workers are treated unhumanely.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

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Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco building.

Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco building.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

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Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco.

Humberto Mendoza, a janitor at Sysco.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

What do we know about janitors who clean our offices?

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Most evenings, a soft-spoken, 48-year-old janitor from Michoacán cleans the high-rise office of a CEO who oversees a $44 billion food distribution company.

Humberto Mendoza says Sysco's chief executive, Bill DeLaney, is a nice guy who sometimes takes a few moments to chat with the mostly Spanish-speaking worker hauling out his recycling. They exchange general pleasantries, maybe a few words about work and family.

Mendoza says the CEO will sometimes ask about his day job - a small business selling tortillas, cheese and Mexican snacks - and about his 3-year-old grandson, the real reason Mendoza took an extra job. He plans to pay for the boy's college with the money.

There's much the janitor and the CEO never discuss. DeLaney doesn't know that Mendoza was a college-educated accountant back in Mexico. He doesn't know that Mendoza had to swallow a little pride to take the minimum wage janitor's job. He doesn't know that he's had to swallow a lot more than that, daily, in order to stay.

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On the other floors, Mendoza says, only a few tenants acknowledge his existence. And working conditions range from difficult to demeaning.

Mendoza described a work environment where employees are repeatedly demeaned and yelled at in front of others for making mistakes.

"I'm speaking out because it makes me angry how people are treated," says Mendoza, a solemn-faced man who combs his thin hair back and wears a gold cross around his neck. "When they're reprimanded or yelled at, they bow their heads like scared little animals. It's humiliating."

Chemical burns

Janitors work even when they're sick, Mendoza says, or risk being docked an extra day's pay as punishment for the absence. He said workers who reach the point at which they would qualify for a raise are sometimes told to re-apply.

Mendoza, who says he has been with Professional Janitorial Services, the contractor, for eight months, recently asked his supervisor about a raise.

"I asked her what happens when I reached my year, and she just laughed," he said.

Mendoza says he doesn't deal directly with chemicals, but he once witnessed a female co-worker who endured a painful, swollen mouth after exposure. She just kept working, he said.

Another janitor at the Sysco building, a 47-year-old single father of two daughters who hails from El Salvador but now lives in Sugar Land, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. The janitor - "Arturo" - says he didn't know much about chemicals when he started working for PJS; he was a lawyer back home. He says he got no training or gloves and as a result his hands became irritated and red, peeling and stinging for weeks.

"The only right I have," he says, "is to get paid."

Being educated men who are a little more savvy than most, the janitors say they are less vulnerable to mistreatment from management. "I don't show them fear," Mendoza says.

Union vs. company

Mendoza says it never occurred to him to discuss these kinds of problems with DeLaney. Although Sysco owns the building, Mendoza holds contractor PJS responsible for poor treatment of staff.

In recent months, janitors and the Service Employees International Union have complained to federal agencies about unsafe conditions and unfair labor practices at the company. SEIU has a bitter history with the company, which has declined to meet union terms. The two are currently embroiled in an ugly court battle stemming from the company's slander suit against the union.

Contractor cited, fined

PJS, founded in Austin in 1986, has locations across Texas and cleans the offices of high-profile banks and corporations.

Earlier this year, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted surprise inspections of several Houston high rises serviced by PJS, resulting in citations and $14,000 in fines, according to documents. "Serious" citations were issued for such things as failure to provide training on use of hazardous chemicals and failure to maintain copies of material safety data sheets. PJS negotiated settlements that allowed them to pay about half of the fines assessed.

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against PJS in January, accusing the company, through its overbroad policies, of "interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees" in the exercise of workplace rights - a charge the company has denied. Among other things, company policies restrict free speech, with one rule specifically banning employees from making "inflammatory or derogatory statements about the company."

Contacted last week, Sysco spokeswoman Wendy Olson promptly looked into the matter and talked to the company's head of facilities. She called back to say my information about OSHA citations didn't jibe with what PJS had reported to Sysco. She said the additional training PJS was ordered to do "had nothing to do with hazardous chemicals or anything like that."

After I sent her the OSHA report on the hazardous chemicals issues, she called back to say Sysco's head of facilities was aware of it and monitored how PJS rectified the issues: "Within 48 hours, things were resolved," Olson said. "The paperwork was there. The additional training had been done. And so the situation for those two cited issues was resolved to our satisfaction."

I asked about the allegations of mistreatment and abusive work environment.

"These are issues against a third party," Olson said. "And I can't speak to them because I don't have all the information."

For its part, PJS dismissed the janitors' claims, suggesting they are part of a "corporate campaign" the union has waged against PJS for seven years in response to PJS' refusal to agree to certain union terms. And despite the OSHA, citation, PJS also labeled the claim about not providing proper chemical training "false."

PJS defends policies

"PJS makes providing a safe and healthy work environment for its employees a top priority," the company's statement said, noting it operated for nearly 27 years without a single OSHA violation and the recent ones were addressed immediately.

The experience of these two janitors is likely not uncommon in an industry where many workers lack education and legal status, with the exception of a few companies that have negotiated with janitors better standards: a pay scale, grievance procedure, health benefits for some and a few days of paid holidays and vacation.

The reality is that many of the folks scrubbing our toilets at our offices, emptying our trash bins and making polite conversation in the hallway work under conditions that would never be allowed in our own companies.